Biography
Homer Brooks, born Homer Lester Bartchy, was the Communist Party's Texas secretary and its candidate for governor in 1936 and 1938 and for the U.S. Senate in 1940. He was jailed while campaigning in Port Arthur in 1936. Later a National Maritime Union seaman, he was taken into federal custody in New York on March 11, 1942, and released on bail that month. A Houston court acquitted him of failing to report for induction but convicted him of failing to keep his draft board informed of his address, imposing sixty days in jail on April 18. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the conviction on June 7, 1943.
The March 19, 1942 Pampa News, page 7, attributes to Assistant U.S. Attorney William R. Eckhardt the report that Brooks was jailed in New York after signing on for a foreign voyage, unable to post $2,500 bond. It describes a Corpus Christi grand-jury indictment on two counts: failure to report for induction on March 4 and failure to keep the Houston board informed of his address. It gives his age as twenty-nine when he registered on December16,1940, without establishing an exact birth date. The $2,500 initial bond report is preserved alongside the later documented $2,000 bail-release amount; the requested transfer to Houston was prospective at publication. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/d6da8406-a13e-4bfd-8634-6cba59fbf35d/download#page=7
The campaign account describes the Texas Communist gubernatorial candidate jailed for several hours in Port Arthur with two unnamed companions and then forced from town. This adds circumstances to the existing 1936 campaign case; the issue does not independently date this incident October 29 or establish a complete measured custody interval. Labor Defender, December 1936, original PDF page 21. Source: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/labordefender/1936/v12-%5B10%5Dn11-dec-1936-orig-LD.pdf#page=21
The March 26, 1942 Big Spring Daily Herald, page 12, reports from New York that Homer Bartchy was freed the previous day on $2,000 bail pending removal proceedings before Commissioner Isaac Platt. His lawyer Raymond L. Wise said an original $5,000 bail had been reduced, and argued that Bartchy had not sought to evade service: he had earned about $1,000 as a seaman to help his fiancee, a medical student, pay tuition, gave National Maritime Union headquarters as his mailing address, and did not receive his board notice in time. Wise also said Bartchy had previously been married and divorced, and attributed use of the Brooks surname to opposition to Communists in Texas. The original-bail figure differs from the March 19 Pampa News $2,500 report; both are attributed accounts, while the release amount is $2,000. Removal proceedings were scheduled for the following day and are not established as completed by this article. Source: https://newspapers.swco.ttu.edu/bitstreams/0c916f69-d1cb-41bf-95a3-5240075571e2/download#page=12
